Revolver safety combined with a holster



Aug. 27, 1957 .w. H. SOSKI ETAL 2,803,909

REVOLVER SAFETY COMBINED WITH A HOLSTER Filed Jan. 17, 1955 IVVENTORS WAL TE H. SOS/ 7 NICK ZADORK/N A T TORNEY' 2,803,909 Patented Aug. 27, 1957 United States Patent Ofifice REVOLVER SAFETY COMBINED WITH A HOLSTER Walter H. Soski and Nick Zadorkin, Sacramento, Calif. Application January 17, 1955, Serial No; 482,087

4 Claims. (Cl. 42-66) The invention relates to devices for rendering firearms safe from unauthorized use.

Many people keep small firearms around the home, in automobiles, or in out-buildings on a farm or ranch. While such possession constitutes a hazard to children and other persons unauthorized to handle these weapons, safety devices such as are currently available on the market are ordinarily not used owing to the difiiculty and time involved in rendering the safety device inefifective so as to permit the user quickly to fire the gun, and in returning the gun to safe condition.

Furthermore, police and other law-enforcement officers have long required a safety device which may be quickly and easily installed on a firearm, for example a pistol or revolver, and which may easily be placed in condition for immediate firing, but which reduces the chance of use of the weapon by an unauthorized person, such as an arrestee or prisoner who, for example, surreptitiously obtains possession of the gun as by seizing it from the olficers holster.

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a gun safety device which can be used on most firearms and which can be utilized either without or in conjunction with a firearm holster.

It is a further object of the invention to provide a gun safety device which can be quickly and easily installed so as to render a gun ineffective to fire but which can as quickly and easily be deactivated so as to render the gun immediately available for use.

It is still another object of the invention to provide a generally improved gun safety device.

Other objects, together with the foregoing, are attained in the embodiment of the invention described below and shown in the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a side elevational view of a typical revolver disposed in a gun holster equipped with the gun safety device, a portion of the revolver, holster and the safety device being shown in section.

Figure 2 shows the device in section, and to an enlarged scale, a portion of the mounting element being broken away to reduce the extent.

Figure 3 is a view similar to the lower portion of the device illustrated in Figure 2, but showing the engaging pin in a different position with respect to the socket.

Figure 4 is a view similar to Figure 3, but showing the engaging pin in still another position within the socket, and with the pin disengaging plunger in a different position from that shown in Figure 3.

Figure 5 is a sectional view taken along the plane indicated by the line 5-5 of Figure 2.

While the gun safety device of our invention is susceptible of numerous embodiments depending upon the particular environmental situation involved, a number of the embodiments herein shown and described have been made and have performed in an eminently satisfactory fashion. The embodied device, while not limited to the environment shown, is conveniently used in conjunction with a revolver 6 disposed in a holster 7 and which is customarily worn either on the person of the user or is stored in a vertical attitude, as shown, with an enlarged opening 8 at the top to receive the gun. The holster converges toward its lower end to form a pocket 9, the pocket frequently being open at the bottom as appears in Figure 1.

The revolver illustrated in Figure 1 is typical of its kind and comprises, among other conventional components, a cylinder 11 having a plurality of cartridge chambers 12 located therein, the chambers being customarily filled with cartridges 13 preparatory to using or firing the gun. In order to arm the gun, that is, to render it capable of firing, a cocking lever 14, or hammer, is depressed by the thumb of the user. As cocking is performed, the cylinder is rotated and the gun thereby placed in armed condition, with a cartridge disposed adjacent the firing pin (not shown) on the hammer.

Since the gun cannot be placed in firing position unless the cocking lever is depressed, and since the cocking lever can be depressed only if the cylinder 11 is rotated, mechanism is provided for preventing rotation of the cylinder. A plug 21, or plunger, comprising an inner head 22 and an outer head 23 slightly enlarged in diameter with respect to the body 24 of the plug, is formed toa size which renders the plug insertable in the barrel 26, or bore, of the firearm. In order to place the gun in safety position, the plug 21 is inserted in the bore so that the inner end 27 of the inner head 22 extends into the cartridge chamber 12, the bottom of a recess 31 in the inner end 27 of the plug abutting or coming into contact with the adjacent end of the cartridge 13. In this position of the plug, the cylinder cannot be rotated to its firing position since, as the cylinder attempts to rotate, the inwardly projecting portion of the head 22 comes into abutment with the walls of the cartridge chamber and prevents further rotation. Since the cylinder is thereby rendered non-rotatable, the gun cannot be cocked and armed.

In order to retain the plug in the innermost position shown most clearly in Figure 1, the plug includes a pair of outwardly bowed resilient wires 32 whose ends are inserted in the coresponding heads 22 and. 23 of the plug. In open or free position, the wires assume the attitudes appearing in Figure 2. Upon insertion of the plug within the bore, however, the wires are resiliently urged inwardly toward the plug, the upper ends 33 of the wires translating into the corresponding spaces 34 formed within the head as the extent of bowing is reduced and the outermost arcuate portions of the wires impinging against the bore walls with sufiicient force frictionally to retain the plug within the gun barrel. The plug is thereby secured against dislodgement as by gravity or vibration.

With the plug in the position shown in Figure l the gun cannot be fired, and, since the outer end of the plug does not project beyond the muzzle so as to be visible, an unauthorized or other person unacquainted with the con struction of the device would not know how to arm the Weapon. In order to render the gun operative, it is necessary to withdraw or remove the plug from the barrel and from the cartridge chamber. To accomplish this result, the frictional resistance of the bowed spring wires 32 is overcome by a superior force exerted by elements capable of engaging and extracting the plug. Projecting outwardly from the outer head 23 of the plug, is a pin 36 substantially coaxial with the axis of the plug and comprising a stem 37, or neck, having at its lower end a head 38, the head including a relatively low angled annular tapered portion 39, or shoulder, on its upper side, as shown in Figure 2, and on its lower side a steeply tapered member 41, or come, terminating at its lower end in a point 42.

Mechanism is further provided for engaging with and holding the pin 50 that as the gun is withdrawn from the holster, the plug is separated from the gun, thus rendering Mounted on opposite sides of the holster, adjacent its lower end is a mounting bracket 51, the bracket including a substantially horizontal plate 52, as appears in Figures 1-4, the plate having a central threaded aperture 53 formed therein. -A socket member '56 is disposed in verti-' cal attitude in threaded engagement with the tapped hole 53, thesocket comprising an enlarged upper hollow sleeve 57, or cylinder, and a lower hollow sleeve 58, the lower end of the sleeve-58 being suitably threaded to engage with the tapped hole 53 and to be held securely thereto as by a retaining nut 59. Theupper sleeve 57 has an interior .cavity'6'1 formed therein which opens upwardly to accept or receive the head 38 of the engaging pin. The upper .end' of the opening is tapered to approximately the same angle as. the angle of taper of the sides of the cone 41 so as to receive and guideaccurately the head of the.

engaging pin. 1

In order to engage the head 38 when the gun is de pressed prior to withdrawal from the holster .(so as to place the gun in condition for arming and firing by separation of the plug from the gun), a pair of spaced parallel resilient wires 66 are provided and which extend substantially across .the chamber 61 in a transverse fashion, the wires projecting through a slit 76, or opening in the cylinder walls and being held in place within an annular recess 67 formed in the outer walls of the cylinder. With especial reference to Figures 1, 2'and 3, it can be seen that as V the entire gun is urged downwardly by hand pressure of the user, the engagingpin is correspondingly urged downwardly, and, since the point 42 of the pin is directed toward and thence interposed between the pairs of resilient wires 66, a further downward motion of the pin will cam or spread the resilient wires 66 apart in the fashion shown in Figure 5, the wires sliding along the tapered sides of the come until the outermost or widest portion of the shoulder 39is reached. At this juncture, still further downward motion of the pin permits the wire pairs 66 to move toward each other, sliding along the flatly inclined shoulder 59, until the wires reach the position indicated most clearly in Figure 3. Owing to the flatness of the taper'on the shoulder 39 as compared with the steep taper of the cone 4.1, considerably more force is required to spread the wires byv Withdrawing :thepin upwardly than is required to urge the pin downwardly into pin engaging position. The force required to withdraw the pin, once the pin is engaged, ;is in fact in excess of the frictional resistance force offered by the :bowed wires 32. Thus, after the pin is depressed into engaged position and the gun ;is extracted from the holster, the plug is held by the socket instead of remaining in safety position in the gun bore, and the user is able immediately to cook and fire the weapon.

When the user chooses to replace the gun in the holster, and to reactivate the disarming device, it is only necessary that the user press upwardly with his finger against a button 71 having mounted thereon a vertical stem 72jterminating'at its upper end in a plate 73, the button ordinarily being disposed in the lowermost position shown, for example, in Figure 2, as a consequence of the forceexerted by a spring 76 urging against the nut 59 at one end and against the button shoulder surface 77 at its other end.

66 bears against the inclined sides of the cone 41 and acts to snap to eject suddenly upwardly the pin and the attendant plug and into the users grasp. The plug is thereupon reinserted into the gun barrel and into the cartridge chamber, and the revolverreturned to the original or safety position, as .shown most clearly in Figure 1.

" It can therefore be ,seen'that we have provided *a gun safety device which may be easily installed so as to disarm 4 V or render temporarily ineffective a revolver, and yet which, upon relatively slight downward motion, known presumably only to the user, permits the gun to be quickly ient wires spanning the upper end 'of said socket, an elongated plug insertable into the bore and registering chamber of a gun in said holster, a pin on said plug coaxial with said plug and said socket and projecting toward said pair of wires, said pin including a steep conical nose adjacent said wires, and a fiatly tapered conical shoulder, the slope of said nose being capable of .easily camming. apart said wires as said pin ismoved into said socket, and the slope of said shoulder being ineffective to camv apart said pair of wires as the gun is withdrawn from said holster, and frictional means on said plug for retaining said plug in said bore-against g'ravital dislodgment of said pin, said. frictional means being incapable of overcoming. the re sisitive force of said wires against said shoulder as the gun'is Withdrawn from said holster. e f

2. A gun safetydevice comprising a plunger frictionally retainable in the barrel 'and cartridge chamber of a revolver, a first engaging member mountedon the end of said plunger distant from jthe cartridgechamber of said revolver, a second engagingmernber mounted exteriorly of said revolver and in alignment with saidfirst member and the barrel, each of said first and said second engaging members including cooperating means for detachably interlocking with each other as said members are translated toward each other a predetermined distance into engagement, said cooperating means being effective to overcome the frictional resistance of said plunger inthe barrel, and means for translatably dislodging said first member from said second member.

3. A safety device for use with a gun and a gun holster, said device comprising: a transverse bracket mounted on said holster adjacent the lower end thereof; an elongated plug insertable into the gun bore and chamber with a predetermined frictional force; asocket mounted vertically ,on said bracket substantially'coaxially With'said plug; cooperating means mounted on the facing ends of said plug and said socket for interlocking engagement as said plug -is *translat-ably urged into said socket by'downward movement of the gun, -said cooperating means beingeffective to overcome said predetermined frictional force of said plug in the gun barrel as the gun is withdrawn from the holster; and means mounted "on said bracket and extendable into said socket for dislodg'ingsaid cooperating means fromeach other. I

4. A gun safety device comprising: an elongated plug insertable-intothe bore and chamber of a revolver to disarm the gun, said plug including means for retaining said plug in the bore and chamber'with'a predetermined frictional force, said'plug further including on its outermost end afirst engaging member; a second engaging member mounted exteriorly .of the revolver bore and coaxially disposed with respect to said plug and the --bore,. said first member being cooperatively engageable withsaid second member with a force superior to said predetermined 1 frictional force between said plugand the barrel as said gun is first 'translatably urged :toward said second member and subsequently withdrawn therefrom; and means for overcoming :theengagingforce between said first and said second member. I I

References Cited in the file of'this patent 

